Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Star Wars: The Old Republic: Tightening Up the Graphics
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
The lack of high-resolution character and armor textures outside of cutscenes in Star Wars: The Old Republic turned out to be an intentional move by Bioware and has stirred quite an uproar in the player community. We offer our thoughts in this week's SW:TOR column.
Players have been wondering about the non-functional ‘High’ setting in the game’s graphics options for some time now. If you’re unfamiliar, setting the game’s graphics settings to ‘High’ is visually no different from setting the game to ‘Medium’. Players also noticed that they were unable to achieve the same graphical quality they were seeing in the game’s cinematic dialogue while playing out in the game world. With enough folks clamoring for answers to both of these concerns, BioWare’s Stephen Reid promised to get them one.
Read more of Michael Bitton's Star Wars: The Old Republic: Tightening Up the Graphics.
)
Comments
The statement was nothing more than a PR spin on the fiasco and was an outright insult to our inteligence.
Especially since plenty of Closed Beta players have stated that they ran the HighRes textures in the older beta client WITHOUT any issues nor lag at all!
Something happened when they released the "new" client, that was also suddenly more than 10GB smaller in size, that they suddenly had to remove both HighRes textures as AntiAliasing ! And we will never know the truth!
Most likely the changes they did in the new client were backfiring at them and forced them to remove the HighRes textures in regular gameplay!
But as with so many other stuff they suddenly removed/dissabled without explanation before the end of beta (Matching Chest color for example)! They choose to go for the quick dirty bandage fix, instead of actually solving the issue. In case of the HighRes textures they could have rolled back the changes they did in the new client!
But whatever! The fact that they just continue to promote the game with full HighRes textures in all screenshots and video coverages is just downright insulting!
I think they have shown that quality is a focus they do grasp. I think they have also shown that the player base expects to be heard and responded too. I also think they probably thought well we will work on this and that and IF the players want this (whatever that might be) then we will give it to them. They are currently patching this game and fixing things at a stamering pace. Should they have discussed the graphics before launch. YES! Will it stop me from enjoying a great MMO, NO!
Why was this not covered in your official review?
I agree the Jerokane, on every point they made, played High Res in Beta, what changed? And why wasn't the playerbase addressed during the rush for presales $$$.
Only after players called out Bioware did they address the issue.
Ok.. the Hi Res issue..
What about the CURRENT FPS issues people are having with the Low-Res textures?
People started to report on the forum. Bioware states publicly:
""[the team] knows that it's important that there is a smaller group of people usually with lower end machines that are having problems in some areas. "
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/10/bioware-responds-to-the-old-republic-performance-issues/2
In comes the WAVES of forum posts of people with High End computers having issues.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=147732
These types of pages go on for 1000 posts before some mod comes in, closes it, and restarts a new thread. Thousands of people experiencing the issue.
So now Bioware postpones the 1.1 update which does NOT include anything to fix the LOW RES issues.
http://www.shacknews.com/article/71915/bioware-working-on-old-republic-framerate-issues
So while I may be pissed that Hi Res stuff is used in all the marketing, Hi Res was in beta and worked fine, Hi Res was removed by Bioware for a undetermined reason (I don't buy what they're selling at this point)...
I am more pissed that I am playing LOW RES and experiencing ONLY 15-30 FPS on a high end computer (that has ZERO issues playing Crysis and Skyrim on High) and getting ZERO response from Bioware. Why don't you ask people at Bioware about THOSE questions...
i,m kind of confused about the gfx in this game...a lot of people have been saying that they only see 10-15 peeps at any one time because the game is heavily instanced..now if thats correct.are they telling everyone that they cant handle 10-15 people in the same location without there being a drop in frame rate if the gfx were on high settings.would someone who now plays please give me a heads up on this..mainly because most other games dont have this problem..,i want to play this game again but from what's being said so far i wont be playing til this is sorted.
+1
I'm starting to think this whole issue falls into "the truth hurts"
Got a high end computer game runs fine no fps issues.
The game looks great haveing a blast playing
Who F****** cares about the high res textures, enjoy the f****** game
Since this wasn't really an issue for me, I think they handled it fine. I never thought the graphics looked all that bad. Of course, I'm not running a high end rig so high end settings would probably just tank my system.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
You know. These kind of responses just piss me off to no end!
So just because you do not have a High End rig and do not care about graphics, it's automatically fine how Bioware handled it?
I find that highly arrogant and egocentric! Totally disregarding and disrespecting a lot of people out there that DO HAVE High End rigs (some even build a new one specially for this game) and DO CARE about HighRes graphics!
That's why GOOD games have plenty of graphic settings to adjust the graphics to match what YOUR system can handle!
WE WANT the CHOICE ourselves to run the game with HighRes textures and DECIDE ourselves if our system can handle it or not!
Is that too much to ask? I think not! Especially since the HighRes textures are already there!
The fact that every media screenshot, promo video, in game videos, ect. ect... ALL have textures that the consumer can not achieve in game- no matter what computer setup they have- Is blatent false advertising.
It would be like picking out a shiney red car off the showroom floor, buying it and they pull out a flat, dull and faded red car from around back.
And that response was basically a " you people are too stupid to adjust your computers settings, so we will decide whats best for you" Just go ahead and kick your customers in the balls while your at it.
Overall its a decent enuff game, me and a buddy are playing it basically as a co op game. Which will give us a month or so of entertainment before we cancel.
It will be ok. Take a walk outside and get some air and some sun.
Following your "point", ask yourself:
"Then why does Bioware use High Resolution to advertise the game"
Lots of people are experiencing severe lags on Ilum - PvP zone, which doesn't seem to be connected to the level of their hardware. I believe they have a very serious issue somewhere in their graphical engine, so they decided to at least force-decrease graphical settings so the game would be playable for the majority. Hope they fix the engine, though for me it looks like the fix will come out after I give up the game, as enfgame content is pretty average so far - I am nearly tired of it right now, especially PvP - it is too lame: only 3 battlegrounds and you can't pick which one to go for, open world PvP don't work at all - people just stand and collect objectives, no actual fighting.
Its marketing..I mean seriously, have you ever gotten a BigMac that looked as it did on TV?
the fact that Bioware would launch regardless of huge issues means they care more about the money than their player bases. Shouldn't have been released with major issues.. even if they did pop up last second.
I agree with this. A lot of companies show screenshots that are very hard to achieve for advertising, but in this case they are literally impossible. That is really outright deceitful. Even more mind boggling are the big name reviews that gave this game above average scores in the visual department when its lacking fundamental textures that are found in pretty much every modern video game.
TwitchTV Partnered Streamer
MMORPG.com Spotlight Blog Writer
Co-Leader of Inquisition
Youtube Channel
You know for me it isn't even about the graphics having an issue or bug, it's about the deception that Bioware is using to "cover up" for lack of better words what was tested by many in Beta and what was released.
Not one review or press release addressed the issue before THE PLAYERS addressed it, not a single one. To me that is unacceptable.
They just didnt had the time to implement that after ea's push.Other games with more heavy textures and graphics overall play a lot better and smoother.Thats why i may cancel.You see noone wants to be fooled around in the face with poor excuses.
This should have been resolved before release... what a stupid error.
It's not that big a deal to me, but folks declaring false advertising in the screen shots... well... that's a perfectly valid point.
If they do finally get it working, I hope they put some scaling in. My system is probably strong enough in most situations to pull off higher rez textures that are in the game, but even at current settings my FPS bottoms out severely on the fleet decks... some 200 people zooming around.
I havea moderatly high rig and could probably run the game on a much higher setting. But bashing someone else for not having the oppertunity to play witch such a setting is retarded. The game is an MMO - its supposed to appeal to the mass's. not the handfful of the mass's that have the "high rig". If they did that, it would end up like AoC. The graphics are fine imo, there will be improvements over time...I understand your argument, but if you want things to look prettier get crysis 2. I would guess that its easier for them to slowly add better settings overtime, as oppose to havingf all these wacky settings at the get go and having even more issues to work out from different bugs from different settings. "o thats what beta's for", you can only beta so much....
Yes it is about marketing my point and response is to show that PC GAMERS care about graphics, consumers do not care about how a BigMac looks. Please don't "straw man" the aguement comparing SWTOR to a BigMac.
?? You know your post is full of irony right?
So because there are people out there that do not have High End rigs, all other people that DO have HighEnd rigs just have to suck it up and suffer lower graphics??
Are you serious? Do you even hear what you are saying here and how ridiculous that sounds?
By your post and definition all games today should still be stuck in year 90's graphics, because there are still people out there with 10 year old PC's !
EverQuest 2 should remove the HighRes textures!
LOTRO should remove the HighRes texture client download! Remove DX10 and DX11 !
Age of Conan should remove their HighRes textures and DX10!
In other words... pretty much every other MMO out there (some even over 7 years old) should remove all High Graphic settings, because there are people out there that cannot run them on these settings!
/SIGH
That defense doesn't hold water in a visual medium.
There is a HUUUUUUUUGE difference in advertising a game that HAS high res functionality on a top tier beast-mode system so you can show off the pretty graphics and advertising a game that has NO high res funcionality in the same manner. This is called "bait and switch" and IS illegal. If someone were so inclined they could probably get their cash back for false advertisement.
Just a quick observation; I would consider not placing so many exclamation points in your post. I'm sure you're probably screaming the whole thing..lol, but it makes it hard to read for some reason as in my head, I just yell the whole thing as I read...
I know this was a big issue for some, but I was one that thought the game looked pretty damn good to begin with. I am happy to see that at the least, Bioware is listening to the players. They may not have immediate fixes, but as long as they're working on things, that's good enough for me. I've played other games were the dev's simply don't care.
Also, in this whole argument, there were people posting screen shots which were false. I have a decent machine, many of you have better, and some screens I've seen were down right ugly. Much worse then what I see every night. Kinda like the mipmapping was turned down intentionally to try and make a point.
Anyway, I'm happy they're working on it.